1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an audio signal processing device composed of a mixer, an effecter, a recorder, a synthesizer, and combination thereof, which optionally processes inputted audio signals and outputs the audio signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, digital mixers for controlling audio systems at places, for example, for concerts, plays, and so on have been known as audio signal processing devices which optionally process inputted audio signals and output the audio signals. In such places, many microphones and many speakers are used to provide a variety of sound effects and so on, in which the digital mixer controls in a centralized manner how to mix many inputs, how to apply such effects, to which output system to output them, and so on. In other words, the digital mixer performs mixing, equalizing, and so on, in accordance with a setting, for audio signals of voice inputted through the microphones and outputs the audio signals to the speakers.
The setting, however, should be done over a wide range such as a mixing status, a patch status, names of switches, kinds of boards used for input and output, and so on, leading to difficult setting operations when and where required. Hence, several required settings are stored in advance as “scenes”, so that a required scene is selected and loaded from among the stored ones to reproduce a required setting status at a required situation.
The applicant of the application has filed an application (JP, 2002-319915, A, and US 2002/0156547, A1). In an example of a digital mixer according to this application, setting information representing a setting status is composed of primary setting data including a setting of each input channel, a setting of each output channel, a setting of an internal effector, a setting of an internal equalizer, and a setting of a monitor; and secondary setting data, which is specified by link information included in the primary setting data, including patch data representing a patch status of mixing processing on the input side and output side, name data being data representing the corresponding between each channel and a name assigned thereto, and unit data being setting data for each input of an input board and setting data for each output of an output board. Plural secondary setting data can be stored as a library, and link information to secondary setting data for use is included in primary setting data for each scene.
As described above, storage of the setting data, divided in primary setting data that is often modified for each scene and secondary setting data that are rarely modified, allows common secondary setting data to be used for different primary setting data, which can reduce the amount of the setting data. Besides, even when a new scene is loaded, a load operation is not necessary for portions having common secondary setting data, which can increase the response efficiency at loading the setting data.
There is, however, a problem that in an audio signal processing device including such a digital mixer, entire modification of setting data is a troublesome operation because storage of the modified setting data requires specification of a save destination of each secondary setting data as well as a save destination of the primary setting data. This problem becomes more prominent when a name is set on the primary setting data or secondary setting data.